Saturday, December 29, 2007

US LT Trials Day 3

Downer for me today. 2.5 seconds slower on the 1000m than two months ago. Why? Too much rest after being sick, new blades, weight gain, not enough endurance training, just had a bad start (slip off the line), .6 slower start, too much Short Track, not enough Long Track, too tight.........why why why.
I've heard someone say that after a bad race you have 30 minutes to analyze it then that's it. Well today I've been thinking about it all day. Enough.
I just hooked up my old blades which are 18 inches and more balanced than the new Maple Lasers I have. I'll get em tommorow for sure.
Highlight of the day today. KIP CARPENTER! He was pushing to stay ahead of Tucker on the inner then fell HARD. Tucker got by without incident. Kip cut his ankle. I'm not sure who stitched him up but he had 6 staples and a few stitches in his ankle. He reskated like 5 minutes later. He might have been out of a job with DSB but Kip is a warrior. He went on to rip a bloody 35.1 then win the 1000m. Wow that's the story of legends that he can tell his grandkids.

p.s. - I just read andrew's account and he mentions Kipper. Sohmy also said Elli killed it which she did. I didn't have much time since there are only 24 hours in a day. Kip's story seems to be the top one of the day. If this was the Olympics you would have seen a 10 minute human drama story about it for sure. I congratulated Elli on kicking my butt yesterday and really for skating PBs. I know her skating well. She was very happy. Good for her. She has worked so hard for so long and her personals were from way back in 2003. That shows the hard work is paying off. Sometimes too much hard work makes you go slower as well. I asked her what did it. Of course, she has no idea. This sport is so hard and weird. Kip said one time that you do all these things to skate well but when you finally pop a good one it's hard to know exactly why. I agree.
As I said before there are a hundred stories and we tend to focus on the winnenrs most times. The other story is the number of Short Trackers kicking it on the Long Track. Look at the results they really made it harder to get top 10 (Cat 1) at trials.

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